A FEW PRACTICAL HINTS. 
301 
Listen patiently to all sensible propositions, and if harm, 
less, you may not object for the moral effect if nothing- 
more. To humor certain whims will often make you a dol¬ 
lar, and on the contrary, to oppose them will gain you an 
antagonist. To be a good listener is an excellent quality. I 
have in this way learned a great deal that is not laid down in 
our works. Some people will bore you every time they get 
a chance, to tell you about certain animals that had this or 
that, and how they treated them. By forbearance, you can 
make some of them friendly to vou, others you will have to 
freeze out by chilling coldness in their reception. You will 
pccasionally encounter troublesome and wisely presumptous 
people, who will make meddlesome inquiries, examine and 
cross-question you, rudely thrust their opinions upon you, 
challenge you to controversy and presume to discuss your 
diagnosis and remedies with you. These same individuals 
will expose everything you tell them, and likely add some¬ 
thing that you have not told them. Give such the cold 
shoulder, but recognize them. They will do you some good 
sometime, perhaps. “Answer not a fool according to his 
folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” School yourself 
till you can prevent your thoughts, embarrassments and opin¬ 
ions showing in your countenance during anxiety and emer¬ 
gencies. Nothing under the sun will cause people to believe 
in and rely on you more readily and permanently than to see 
you believe in and rely on yourself. Be not arrogant and self- 
conceited, but study to hide your doubts, hesitations, uncer¬ 
tainties, self-distrusts and apprehensions. 
“ In no department of veterinary medicine is the practi¬ 
tioner so frequently placed under such great difficulties as 
when he is summoned on cases of accidents. Messages are 
either only half delivered, garbled or supplemented from the 
imagination, and as is proved on examination, the case offers 
no resemblance to the condition which reports have con¬ 
veyed. The resources of medicine are thus materially inter¬ 
fered with, and success denied. The officiousness of by¬ 
standers also greatly retards the attempts to arrive at the 
truth, by their endeavors to demonstrate their acquaintance 
